Monday, April 11, 2016

Hiraeth

For some,
the hibiscus-petal shaped segment one is often shown on a map on the northern
part of the land between India and Pakistan is seen as representing Indian
territory. For some others, it represents Pakistani territory. For years
together, statistics have come and gone. From intellectuals to academicians,
from journalists to foreign observers, Kashmir has remained a part of a larger
conversation – one that invariably ends with sympathetic sounds and a soulful
shake of the head. And yet, in the midst of all those stories that get reduced
into a statistic, there are real stories – stories that have seldom been told –
and have been preserved in the folds of time, shared in hushed whispers.

Of the many
stories, those of Kashmiri Pandits is lesser known – if not altogether ignored.
Avanti Sopory, a writer among many things, has compiled a collection of
folktales from her native place Kashmir and which are in the final editing
stage. A columnist for a Jammu based newspaper, “Daily Excelsior”, Avanti has
also contributed her articles for newspapers like “Young Minds”, “The Daily
Latest”, and “Kashmir Times.” She shares her story of life as a Kashmiri
Pandit, and being one among the many who were forcibly driven out of their
homes in 1990.

Kashmiri Pandits have always had a bit of a
stay and go sort of a story, for a very long time. In the 11th and
12th Centuries, with the arrival of the Mughal and the Afghan
invaders, Kashmiri Pandits had moved out to escape the impact of the invasions.
Aurangzeb, the Mughal ruler, forced Kashmiri Pandits to convert to Islam. At
one point in Aurangzeb’s reign, the impact of forcible conversions was too much
to bear. The Kashmiri Pandits approached the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh
Bahadur, who took on Aurangzeb for their sake. After all the turbulence, the
Kashmiri Pandits would return to live in their motherland, in their homes.
There was, as it appears, a tendency towards hatred for those who were
non-Islamic. Among the minority community of non-Muslims, were the Kashmiri
Pandits, the Sikhs and the Punjabis – of whom the latter two were a smaller
minority in terms of numbers. This was a backdrop that prevailed for many years
prior to day of the exodus.

In 1947, after the partition, mercenaries and
invaders from across the border entered Kashmir. My cousin’s grandmother lived
in Baramullah, the place that is closest to Pakistan. The mercenaries and
invaders would enter houses, shoot a few bullets to induce fear, and then
ransack the house. They had entered my cousin’s grandmother’s house, and fired
a few rounds. She pretended to have been shot, and collapsed, as if she were
dead. One of the invaders walked up to her and tried to wake her, kicking her
with his booted leg. Another invaders then said, “Saali to mar gayi, chodo
isko.”[The woman (the term saali is derogatory) is dead. Leave her.]

It was around the 1980s – specifically, 1986
and 1987, when things got worse. My mother was a teacher in one of the schools
in Srinagar. In those days, the area we lived in had houses that were over a
hundred years old. If we wanted to accommodate our expanding families, we had
to expand our houses by constructing further. One day, my mother casually
mentioned expanding the house to one of her colleagues. Her colleague didn’t
bat an eyelid when she responded saying, “Why do you need to develop the house?
You’re not going to stay here for long anyway!” At that point in time, it
didn’t strike my mother as anything significant. It was only much later that we
would all collectively realise that there was a grander plan in place – and
that we would bear the brunt of it all.

A view of the Kashmir Valley

I was twelve when we left Srinagar – I was in
Class Six at the time. I’ve grown up seeing curfews and instances of stone
pelting. I have heard many stories of families in Kashmir, facing all kinds of
harsh treatment. My father worked for the Intelligence Bureau, but this was not
something I knew until I was around a marriageable age and my parents made a
matrimonial profile for me. While growing up, I had no idea what my father did
for work. But, I knew enough that the militants had made a list of Kashmiri
Pandits who had held positions in the Government of India, and that list
included doctors and professionals, and included my father’s name. My father
would tell us, as children, to not take the same route home and not talk to
strangers. To us, these were not strange instructions. Once, my brother was
stopped on the way home from school and was interrogated – and I remember my
father telling him not to take the same route. As we grew up, we heard of so
many similar stories of families and children being harassed and questioned.

I lived in Srinagar till I was in December
1989. In all the years of my childhood in Srinagar, I never knew how big a deal
Diwali was. If there was a cricket match, and India lost the match, it was like
Eid in Kashmir – there would be massive celebrations. If India won the match,
there would be an atmosphere of anger. Personally, to us, identities and
attributes didn’t matter at all – we never felt the need to use identity to
make anyone feel uncomfortable. We always co-existed. There are so many ethnic
groups, and at our age and level, no one even spoke about these ethnic differences.
But in 1989, it all changed.

Kashmir has long winters – back then, as I
remember it, three long months of winter were winter vacations at school. Back
then, in the winters, life would come to a standstill – infrastructure would
get disconnected. In December 1989, during the winter vacations, I had gone to
Jammu, to visit my maternal grandparents. I wasn’t in Srinagar even on January
19, 1990, the day that went down in history as the official date of the exodus.
I had extended family in Srinagar – and they had all been forced to leave. I
remember their stories – there were massive calls from the Minarets to drive
the Kashmiri Pandits out of their homes. It was not out of the ordinary to
constantly hear militants say, “Kafiron niklo”
(Hindus, leave) or “Behnon aur betiyon ko rakho aur niklo” (leave your
sisters and daughters behind and leave). Agreed that all sides have had a role
to play in the Kashmir valley – even the mention of Kashmir leaves a sense of
discomfort in many circles. But in my understanding, the jingoism adopted in
colouring the militants among the Muslim community, especially by citing the
Indian army and then promising them a future with Islamic law and such else,
tended to bridle a greater culture of antagonism to the non-Muslim communities.

I have heard many stories of mothers protecting
their daughters from the militants’ grip. Mothers hid their daughters in sacks
of rice, and in rice containers in attics. In case of any intruder barging in,
my mother-in-law, kept two big boilers gurgling with hot water ready on the
attic; only to spout them on any militant or impostor getting into the house.
Of course it was protect her daughters from any mishap.Militants used to point the gun at the chandan tikka – the sandal marker
of religion that Kashmiri Pandits had on their foreheads. At the time of the
exodus, my great grandmother was alive. We had to haul her out of the house to
save her life. For her to move out of our home, the ancient, large building,
and then to live in a one-room apartment, in a pigeon hole, literally – leaving
behind everything we had known, our homes, our items, our lives – it was just
terrible. They say that Jagmohan, the then Governor of Kashmir, was responsible
and should have done something to avert it. But the Chief Minister then was
busy holidaying outside.

There has been no record, no history, no FIR,
no official note on these events. My friends and family members in the media
tell me that the media is not interested in covering these stories – and it
really makes me wonder why there is so much silence around this.

We are not fools to believe that such a big
thing was happening and the Chief Minister did not have any idea. I may be
naïve about the politics surrounding it, but I am being uprooted and I have no
homeland, and all this has happened because of my ethnic affiliation.

The cost of the exodus has been heavy. I lost
my home. I lost my motherland. I lost the cultural and ethnic affiliation that
binds me to my soil. I tell my children that I am Kashmiri – but my children,
who were born in Delhi, they don’t connect with their Kashmiri Heritage. And as
newer and newer generations of the displaced populace continue to be born, they
will go further and further from the truth of their heritage. They have had
plans to resettle Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir, and have even given some of them
positions in certain administrative capacities in Kashmir. But why is it that
only some people have this? Why is it only in select administrative positions?
Why is the core position never given? We haven’t had a single Kashmiri Pandit
climb the rungs and hold larger administrative positions.

I have no home to go to, at the end of the day.
Today, a Kashmiri Pandit in Kashmir is still afraid when he gets out of the
house to even so much as buy vegetables. The light is erratic in their areas
alone. Why?

Since the exodus, I have not been to Srinagar.
There is no desire, either. I don’t want to go there as a tourist. They had
burned down my house. Kashmiri Pandits, as a community, have come a long way,
and have moved onto eking a living of our own. We are all over the world, and
have settled around the world. Is it that if we were uprooted, we are supposed
to remain in grief all along? Is our moving on a sin? Does it mean that our
past can be obliterated, forgotten, never to be entered in the books of
history?